Join us on Tuesday, May 29, for what's sure to be an interesting conversation on Web Accessibility.
Date: Tuesday, May 29
Time: 12 noon to 1:30 pm
Place: 150 University Hall. NOTE ONE-TIME CHANGE OF VENUE
Speaker: Dianne Walker, Project Engineer, IST, and the Web Accessibility Group
Topic: Web accessibility at Berkeley
Why does it make sense to (re)design your website with accessibility in mind early in the process? In the words of one campus web developer:
- You're going to be changing all that code anyway as part of the redesign; why not do it the right way, and start from the ground up with accessible practices?
- Adhere to web standards, and accessibility will be almost automatic. Plus, your site will be far less likely to encounter problems with current or future web browsers.
- Making your site as accessible as possible to disabled visitors also means improved accessibility for web crawlers, spiders, and bots. The likely result: Improved rankings with Google and other search engines.
- If you follow best practices like semantic markup (using the proper HTML element for each type of content) and separating content from design (via CSS), you may have a higher learning curve at the beginning if you've not done this in the past. But future site changes will be vastly easier because of the structure you will have put in place. In fact, if you plan things right, you could completely change the appearance of your site next year or next month without having to open and modify any of the pages; just tweak the CSS stylesheet.
Easier site changes? Less time and therefore less expense? Yes. And you get accessibility too? What? Doing the right thing saves money? YES! So, why not make your website accessible?
WebAccess, the campus web accessibility group, will review Section 508 standards and W3C guidelines on web accessibility as well as the campus commitment to technology accessibility. Then they'll take you though a WebAccess clinic, where they'll be evaluating a newly designed campus website from an accessibility point of view.
Helpful links to get you started:
(Re)designing your website with accessibility in mind:
istpub.berkeley.edu:4201/bcc/Spring2007/993.html
Tips for improving web accessibility:
istpub.berkeley.edu:4201/bcc/Fall2006/927.html
Tips for improving web accessibility — round 2:
istpub.berkeley.edu:4201/bcc/Spring2007/991.html
Got a conflict? Can't be there? Contact Dianne Walker, WebAccess Lead, for more information.
